ПРИПРЕМА БУДУЋИХ УЧИТЕЉА И ПРОБЛЕМ ФОРМИРАЊА КУЛТУРНОГ ИДЕНТИТЕТА.

In the Republic of Serbia, education reforms have been implemented since 2000 with the aim of harmonizing this important field of society with the so-called European Education Area. The whole range of changes lawfully adopted and applied in practice at all levels of institutionalized education is mainly directed towards the standardization and unification of "domestic" education with the educational paradigms of a neoliberal society. Maintaining the continuity of cultural development and the formation of cultural identity are important issues for overall social development, and they are not given proper attention in the education strategy. In addition to that, the institutional preparation of future teachers does not sufficiently focus on this issue. In this paper we consider: (1) the normative framework that regulates the field of primary education and the formation of cultural identity in the Republic of Serbia, (2) the factors influencing the process of training future teachers for the formation of cultural identity and (3) the teachers’ competencies as a support to the formation of the cultural identity of younger school-age children. The importance of the harmonization of the basic guidelines of the normative framework regulating primary education and the formation of cultural identity with the basic intentions of preparing future teachers is emphasized. Especially from the perspective of the role of teachers in the process of establishing and preserving the cultural identity of generations reaching compulsory primary education in the context of intergenerational transmission of culture, cultural patterns and values. At the same time, the paper emphasizes the insufficient presence of content in the education of future teachers that would adequately prepare them for understanding the complex problem of forming a cultural identity. The authors point out the importance of the groundedness of future teachers’ preparation in terms of their academic knowledge of society, history and culture. The aim of the paper is to emphasize the importance of developing teachers’ competencies necessary for understanding identity issues and forming a cultural identity. The paper employs the descriptive-analytical method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]